Keeping the glass empty

I'm attempting a feat I haven't accomplished since before college: Not drinking. For a month.

Now, I know you're thinking "Ric -- YOU crazy girl!"

But really first off, that's not that long.

Don't get me wrong; I don't drink nearly as much as I did at UW-SP. Or since most everyone moved away from Whitewater, my college away from college. At this point, I'd probably the be worst choice for a beer pong partner; and the Beast hasn't touched my lips since at least a year ago.

But I still drink on a weekly basis.

I usually have a glass of wine once or twice a week when I eat, or relax while surfing the nets, or reading a book. I'll get over that. I'm usually pretty busy M-F anyway, so I'll bide my time.

My achilles? Beer.

I'm not talking about that watered-down, flavorless crap Miller and Budweiser try to pass for triple hops, barley special edition brew master fresh, blah blah blah... (which, I can enjoy on occasion). I'm talking about full hops IPAs and nutty amber ales. See, I don't know much about beer. But I know when it tastes good.

So relaxing on the weekend, I've been sitting back, grilling out with a burger and Beck's Dark. Or hang out on the porch, enjoying a Guinness.

But I've noticed it's affected my marathon training. Last week, after tailgating for a Brewer game Monday night, and heading to Thursday night trivia at the Milwaukee Ale House; I noticed that the combination lack of sleep and too many pints put me over the edge. I kept up with my training schedule, but struggled each time I put on my running shoes.

Instead of cutting back, I'm going cold turkey. But wait, derrs more!

A couple weeks ago, I won a six pack of Special Edition Jim Gaffigan Point Pale Ale (and his new comedy album) from the Pabst. Awesome! I still have to pick it up...

Then, in compensation for writing a cover story at work for my old magazine, my bosses bosses boss said he'd pick up a 12-pack of any brew I wanted, instead of cash. (Apparently we've resorted to the barter system at the office...) Cool. Gimme some Newky Brown!

Alas, they'll have to sit in the fridge. For now, I'll stick with resisting temptation to focus on the big picture: kicking that half marathon's ass.

Bills, pills, pills

I started taking the BCP about five months ago, and my doctor said if I had any questions, wanted to switch up the type of prescription or awkwardly talk about the weather with my pants off again, I should give her a call. A few weeks ago, I decided I'd had enough with the current pill and wanted to try something else.

I called the doctor's office to explain what I wanted (a new prescription) and why (because it makes me crazies/go blind/not sleep). The woman on the other end of the line said it was absolutely necessary for me to see the doctor. But not before making me feel like an idiot because my symptoms sounded ludicrous.


*Three weeks later, after hassling with a reschedule.*

I go in for my appointment, tell the Dr. my problems and she goes over the options. We decide on a low-dose BCP. Problem is, there are no generics. That means spending at least 50 percent more for the EXACT SAME THING. (Think Tylenol versus Target brand acetaminophen -- there's no difference, they just use different color dye for the pills.)

Next day, I head to Walgreen's to pick up the prescription. But in exchange for those 28 little baby blockers, they want $60. WHAT?!!? That's more than my food budget for the WEEK. I ask them to call the office back and ask for a prescription of the second option we discussed. But they don't call doctors at Walgreens, they fax them. It's 2009, not 1991. But whatevs. They tell me the request should go through and to come back tomorrow.

Day three: On top of not hearing back from the doctor, Walgreens refuses to call to confirm. I have to call. It's 4:55, the doctor's office closes at 5 PM and I have to get home to look up the number first. UGGH. No dice.

Rather than deal with Walgreen's ineptitude toward customer service, or using any ounce of common sense, I decide to go the mail route and order the pills via NextRX. Although it takes about two weeks to fill, an entire 3-month supply costs $90.

Then a week ago, I got a bill in the mail. (See... ...Medical Bill Errors: Fighting Mistakes, it happens more than you think.)

Because I was, IMHO, forced to make an appointment to see my doctor in person, versus a simple chat on the phone, I have to pay $20. I didn't know that. Funny -- last time I checked, swindling people out of cash was a crime.

Per a conversation with mi madre, it's best to request to talk to the doctor if at all necessary to avoid an extra trip to the clinic. She said I should also be thankful my co-pay's only $20, instead of $200. Yikes.

Or maybe I should just follow the rest of America and bend over while health care takes advantage.

Cube scavengers

As part of my "worst week ever" series, I found out that our magazine group had to move to a different set of desks on Wednesday. Same cube farm, two aisles over.

So today, the six of us got some boxes together, called IT and started the transition.

My problem, mostly, is that the move seems completely unnecessary. I'm still about 10 feet from the office door. But now they took away my window (poor Leon!), and I have a muzak speaker and blasting air vent anchored to the ceiling above me.

Moving, in general, sucks.

To see the silver lining, I can say it's a good thing because I had the opportunity to clean out my desk, and some of the drawers and filing cabinets that haven't been touched since I moved a year ago.

And I also got to hunt for new things. I went out in search of a drawer organizer; because my junk drawer's brimming with random crap like socks, gum and whiteout.

I wandered around the office looking in abandoned cubes for some cool new gear. I found some metal separators for my drawers in an old publishers office, and a drawer organizer for some pens and paper clips.

I also found an ergonomic chair, but Brendan stole it before I had a chance to take it to my cube.

this morning, too, I even dug through my closet to find some posters I haven't had up since college, to try and decorate my workspace a little bit more.

So here I am all settled.


I moved the wall over, so my entrance is in a corner instead of the center. That makes my cube look luxurious. Notice, too, how big Leon's getting.


There past my cube, you can see the one lone window I have access to again, instead of the wall of windows I had previously.


Easy exit.

April fool

Tuesday night, I had planned on heading to my friend Kim's house in Milwaukee with Michelle, so we could see a concert at Turner Hall. (Margot& the Nuclear So-and-Sos and Cloud Cult were both amazing.) Kim's apartment has four parking spaces; because her downstairs neighbors have two cars, one parks in the garage next to Kim, and the other usually takes up the entire cement parking slab. Kim said it'd be cool to park on the cement slab in her alley because it was designed for two vehicles.

We get home from the concert around 11:30 PM and start winding down for bed, only to get a knock at the door about a half hour later. The downstairs neighbor just got off of her second shift and wondered why there was someone parked in her spot. Kim explained the situation, apologized and agreed to move her car from the garage out onto the street for the night, so the neighbor could park next to her boyfriend's car in the garage. Cool.

But after Kim took care of the situation and moved her car, we looked out the back window to see the neighbor's car still parked in the alley.

But see, the thing was, it wasn't just parked in the alley -- but perpendicular to my car, parking me in completely.

We were wiped, and headed to bed thinking she might just move it and everything would be taken care of in time to leave for work in the morning.

I previously set up with my editor to work from home yesterday, and had decided I'd head to Gregor's Wednesday morning to work from his computer.

Before Kim and Michelle left for the office, Kim knocked on the neighbor's door around 7 AM. No answer. She wrote a note explaining the situation, asking if they could move the car as soon as the boyfriend was up, seeing as he usually left for work before 9 AM.

I sat around Kim's apartment, checked my work email, got a few things done. Around 8 AM, I went downstairs myself and knocked on the door. The note was still hanging there. Quiet. No answer.

At 9 AM I tried again. I walked downstairs, knocked at three separate times, and rang the doorbell. Then the dog started whimpering on the other side of the door. I rang the doorbell again. The dog barked a few times.

Then I heard a woman's muffled voice, calling the dog away from the door. And that was it. I knocked at least another five times, and rang the doorbell. WTF.

I wasn't sure if maybe she couldn't come to the door. It crossed my mind for a minute that she might be in trouble. No such luck.

I walked back upstairs, called Kim and explained everything. She decided to call her landlord and get their direct number. She called the guy, who had already left for work and explained to him what was going on.

In the meantime, I decided to try knocking again, rang the back doorbell, and headed to the front, ringing that doorbell too.

Kim called back. The dude neighbor told her, blantantly, that his girlfriend wasn't moving the car. That also meant that he left the house and saw the note, but also refused to be the bigger person by moving his GF's car.

At this point, I'm livid. Not only had we tried to remedy the situation the night before, but this chic was being a crass bitch who refused to move her car out of spite. And was doing it to a complete stranger.

I called Gregor around 9:30, who had called in sick to work (really, because he was sick :(), and told him what happened. He agreed to pick me up, and we'd pick up my car later that afternoon when the neighbor left for her second shift again.

Ugh.

I can't believe that any person would have the audacity to deliberately choose to be that spiteful, or inconsiderate.

All I have to say is, Karma's a bitch.

Got gum?

This afternoon, I walked over to the gas station to buy a cup of coffee. I knew I had at least a dollar's worth of change in my coat pocket, so I wandered over, filled the cup and walked up to the register.

As I pulled out my handful of change, I noticed there were blue, sticky bits plastered to all the coins. WHAT IS THIS?

I tried to cover up my unruly pocket full of quarters and dimes by hovering over my hand while picking out the correct coinage.

Apparently, I left a stick of gum (unchewed, thank you) in my pocket awhile back. After all the abuse of jingling change, the gum couldn't handle the pressure and EXPLODED all over.

Keep on keeping on

"The long run puts the tiger in the cat." --Bill Squires, marathon trainer

As many of you already know, I made a few New Year's resolutions in January. To update everyone on the status, and keep myself motivated, here's a little update:

Read books
I've taken certain liberties with this first one. Right now I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Good so far. I've also been keeping up on my Time and New Yorker subscriptions, for the most part.

Other than that, I've become more familar with other forms of literature, including comic books. We'll blame Gregor. But don't laugh yet. I've read Watchmen, and became completely enveloped with the story. I focused so much on it, I was able to finish the whole book within a week, in time to see the movie in theaters. (Which I found mildly disappointing.) Also for Christmas, I got the beginning series of Y: The Last Man, about the only dude left alive after a plague wipes out everyone with a Y chromosome. It's written by Brian K. Vaughn; also one of the lead writers for the TV series, Lost. Reading Y is like watching an episode of a TV show, but you're actually reading. Awesome, and highly recommended.

Visit another country
Completed this last month with a trip down to Florida. Headed to Miami and took a short cruise over to the Bahamas. But even though I showed off my passport to customs, et al, it wasn't that gratifying -- no stamps! But my stepdad promises to remedy this by taking all of his and my mom's kids to Mexico next March.

Control my finances
Working on it. I'm still using mint.com, and it's come in handy to keep me on track (for the most part). I also write down every expense in my ledger, religiously. So, not only do I keep track of things going in and out of my account online, I record how much money comes out exactly when I spend it.

I just have to keep in mind summer's coming up; where I'll want to go to every Brewer game possible, along with camping trips, Summerfest, music concerts and cookouts. Gotta keep it frugal.

Participate in a marathon
My final, and most ambitious feat. (ooh, punz.) I promised myself I'd train hard for a half marathon first (13.1 miles compared to a full marathon at 23.2 miles), because I'VE NEVER RAN A LONG DISTANCE IN MY LIFE. No cross country, no 5Ks, no H.S. track.

Since beginning my training I've had bloody feet, blisters, caluses, shin splints, sores and aching muscles.

Up until recently, I had started falling off the training schedule. I struggled walking into the gym three times a week, not anticipating staring at myself in the mirror while I pushed through five miles on a treadmill. Ugh. It was mundane, boring, overdone.

But two weeks ago, I threw on some sweatpants, a long-sleeved shirt and my kicks, and decided to head outside. Only about 45 degrees, I immediately regretted the decision of not bundling up -- until I started running. And I kept running. I made it about 5 miles running, with another 2 miles totaled before and after, for a 7-mile loop.

I had never gone long distances outside, but figured I needed something to change it up. I didn't take for granted the fact that my scenery was changing. I wasn't just running in place, I was going somewhere. It felt amazing.

Then I did it again last Thursday. I planned out a loose trail to follow via mapmyrun.com for my long run of the week, and went to it. I ran a full 7 miles, with an additional 1.5 for warm-up and cooldown, totaling 8.5 miles. And I'm certain I experienced my first-ever real runner's high.

For the second time since I started training, at the end of my route I wanted to throw my hands up in the air and break through the finish line. I felt like I had accomplished something. This was bigger than me.

So, in the final stretch of training -- I know I won't compete professionally with some of those other runners -- my body has already done things I would've never even dreamed of. Here's to finishing up the last seven weeks of training.

On Wisconsin

For some reason, I thought Wisconsin's slogan was always "Forward." But that's a motto. I don't know what the difference is.

Anyway, Governor Doyle, et al, enlisted a company to come up with a new state slogan for the Department of Tourism. What'd they come up with? This:

"Live like you mean it." It reminds me of a Killers song. And what's with that dude doing a cartwheel?

Creative? Not really. Catchy? Meh. Scrutinized by the public majority? Oh, you betcha.

Check out what Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnst Jim Stingl has to say about the new slogan:New state slogan raises ridicule to a sport.

What was wrong with the old one, "Life's so Good?" Why fix something that's not broken. Not that that one took much either. Besides, the Department of Tourism already laid off all of the meet-n-greeters at state border visitor centers.

But wait a tick -- this isn't the first time that slogan has been used. Back in 2005, Bacardi came up with a marketing scheme based on that same phrase. Fitting I suppose, since we're known as the state of drunks.

Here are a few examples of other potential slogans I've found on different message boards, or heard on the radio during "Kramp & Adler" on 102.1.

-Wisconsin: The other white state.
-Eat cheese or die.
-Wisconsin, where it's always windy because Minnesota blows and Michigan sucks.
-I love dairy air./Smell our dairy air.
-Honk if you love cheeses

And, my favorite:

-Wisconsin: the state shaped like an oven mit.